Keinhaar: What is it exactly that you are suggesting better burns fat than a long period of aerobic excercise?

Burns fat, or burns calories?

The *most* aerobic thing one can do is absoloutly nothing. I say "most" because it's not like one metabolic pathway or the other can simply be shut on/off...only emphasized. Proportionatly, the highest degree of fat mobilization should come at rest...proportionatly. Likewise, the smallest proportion of our blood sugar should be coming from our own muscle at rest. That's what the body likes. Exercise is stressful, afterall.

If jogging burns 300 extra calories in an hour, how many of those calories are coming from fat? How many from blood sugar? How many from the blood sugar come from our amino acids? At what threshold does the demolition of our resting metabolic rate outweigh the benefit of the extra calorie expenditure?

The answer to all these question is....it's hard to say. So perish the idea of trying to actively burn things off. It doesn't amount to a whole lot anyway...not when you consider the time required to *consume* that amount; and not when you consider that at least half of those calories are NOT coming from fat; and not when you consider that many of the calories not coming from fat are, in fact, coming from muscle.

So, beef up with muscle, and then diet. Diet is the only way you have precise control over what goes in, and with enough trial and error you should be pretty close to knowing just how many are going out.

Look, I DO have experience battling the gut. I used to be very overweight, and then I made a conscious effort to change that. I picked up weight training and changed my diet. Later, I added in cardio. My body composition has completely changed, and now I'm pretty damn muscular, with little bodyfat and 6-pack abs. Add to that the fact that all I have left to do is become CPR certified and I'll be an officially certified Personal Trainer by the Internation Sports Sciences Association.

Let me qualify what I mean when I say overweight. I was, well, fat, actually. Overweight is misleading because I've actually gained a fair amount of weight since then, but it's mostly been muscle weight, and my bodyfat percentage is way down.

High intensity anerobic exercise burns more calories than long, low intensity cardio.
The key to losing a beer gut is mostly in the diet, cardio and weight training are secondary.
Weight loss isnt the goal. Losing bodyfat while retaining as much muscle as possible is the goal.

Theres nothing more discouraging than losing 15-20 lbs and looking just as fat as you did before you started dieting.

I've actually had to battle off the beginnings of a gut from time to time. The average cadet received around 3-4000 calories a day, and yet, thanks to classwork, not many actually worked it off. Here are some things that helped me (realize that I'm pretty active also). Take what you can, but remember, anything that the "experts" tell you can easily be found in either a book they read, or the book they're trying to get you to buy (I mean, how many times can different mens magazines run what's basically teh same advice on how to sculpt your abs?).

First off, cut your calories, and be careful of your carbs to start. Carbs are good for energy, but excess carbs (like when you drink beer, sit on your ass, and don;t actually work them off) just become fat.

Second, for any cardio exercise, you don't start burning fat until you've performed the exercise for approximately 20 minutes. befpre that, you burn ATP, then sugars, then carbs. When you're low on fat, you'll start burning protein, which is highly inefficent. Doing this actually produced an amonia smell from the body (as is characterized from recent Ranger School graduates for this very reason).

This leads to my next point on all of the diets that you hear about. Low carb/high protein works because the 20% of the protein digested goes toward processing the other 80%. Carbs only use 8% and fat uses 2%.

My personal suggestions:

1. Lower your carb intake late in the day, especiall after you've exercised.

2. Lower you calorie intake by lowering your food portions by 25%. By this I mean, don't restrict yourself during meals. If for dinner you would have chicken, string beans, and mashed potatoes, still do that. Just make sure to eat a smaller serving.

3. Although it's not the greatest on your back, the situp has been shown to be one of the best ab exercises. At teh same time, be sure to do exercises for your lower back. Studies show that people who work their abs without working their back tend to suffer back pain.

4. Join a gym nearby. You don;t really need a personal trainer, just access to equipment. Plus, if you paid for it, you'll be damn sure that you get your money's worth.

5. Volunteer to be the designated driver when you go out with friends. Beer is a lot of empty calories. now, you'll be helping your friends AND yourself.

6. If you don't already run, try an eliptical runner first (see #4). Less impact, controlled programs, and actually a good lower body isolation exercise.

7. don't change too many things too fast. By this, i mean, don't ycut our carbs, lower your portions, AND change your eating schedule all at the same time. The body responds to lack of food by storing more of what you take in as fat. That's why skipping meal is counterproductive to losing weight. Star with what you eat. do that for a week or more, then how much, then how frequently.

I really liked keinhaar's point, because those people are losing muscle. More muscle helps burn more fat. So when these people "lose" weight by losing muscle, they hurt themselves in the long run.

SAFTA4Life is also correct. That guy from "King of Queens" lost 45 pounds, and talked about how discouraging it was because he looked no different. Meanwhile the guy who played Newman on Seinfeld actually looks very fit now.